34-0 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



blacker on distal pads. Two females taken at Pucro on February 2, 

 1964, had the soft parts like the male's except that the bare forehead 

 was dull red. 



Measurements. — Males (7 from Darien and Colombia) , wing 241.0- 

 264.0 (253.9), tail 184.5-201.0 (195.3), culmen from base 65.2-71.2 

 (68.1, average of 6), tarsus 60.0-63.6 (55.8) mm. 



Females (9 from Darien and Colombia), wing 198.0-228.0 (205.8), 

 tail 154.6-180.0 (168.5), culmen from base 51.6-67.7 (57.1, average of 

 8), tarsus 43.7-59.3 (48.6) mm. 



Resident. Fairly common in the lowlands of Darien, and may range 

 west into the upper Bayano River valley in eastern Province of Pan- 

 ama, where there are some recent unconfirmed sightings (Ridgely, 

 1976, p. 306) that may be referable to Crested Oropendolas. The Black 

 Oropendola is also found in northern Colombia. In Darien it has been 

 collected at Marraganti by E. A. Goldman in 1912, at Tapalisa, Chepi- 

 gana, and El Real on the Rio Tuira by W. B. Richardson in 1914 and 

 1915, and on the Rio Sambu by the Fifth George Vanderbilt Expe- 

 dition in 1941. Other Darien specimen records (fide Eisenmann) are 

 from Santa Fe, Rio Chucunaque, and Rio Pirre. 



In 1964 I found a group of males at a nest colony at Pucro, Darien, 

 in late January. The colony was in a tree at the border of a stand of 

 platanos. Near or at the nest, the males called hollowly and then fell 

 forward to hang upside down briefly. This was varied by the hollow 

 calls being followed by high pitched excited notes — kwee, kwee, kwee 

 or keea, kee-a, kee-a, often uttered as the bird dashed away in sudden 

 flight. The colony's 20 or so nests were mostly complete and were 

 grouped closely in the ends of two or three branches. On the ground 

 were the nests of last season that apparently had been torn down by the 

 birds when they started the new construction; many of them were com- 

 plete. One that I examined had many small, partly cut up dried leaves 

 in the bottom. 



A Black Oropendola that I watched feeding in a flowering tree at 

 Pucro thrust its bill into a closed flower and gaped to open the corolla. 

 I was interested to find when skinning one of these birds that the bare 

 blue patches, projecting roundly, and hard to the touch, covered a jaw 

 muscle of similar size. 



Females that I collected in early February were nearly in laying con- 

 dition, but in the evenings all the birds I saw were flying to roosts 

 rather than remaining at the nest tree. 



Two eggs from Remedios, Antioquia, Colombia, in the Salvin- 

 Godman collection at the British Museum are oval, dull white, with 



